Diary of a Dairy Goat. This blog is the diary of one goat, Baby Belle, a Nigerian Dwarf who lives on a small dairy farm in Western Washington.

Tuesday, July 29, 2008

Blue Umbrella

Do you know this song? Blue Umbrella? People think it is a John Prine song, because he sings it, but like some of the best John Prine songs, it is actually a Steve Goodman song. We thought about it today because it is raining for the first time in what seems like months, a melancholy nostalgic summer rain that reminds us of a melancholy nostalgic song.

"Blue Umbrella, rest upon my shoulder,hide the pain while the rain makes up my mind,"

And anyway, Blue Umbrella is my youngest daughter's name. She is a beautiful yearling milker, a blue roan broken buckskin with blue eyes. With all that natural blue, Blue Umbrella seemed like a good name.

Yesterday the farmer was trying to teach the big milkers how to use the new milk bench. They have to run up a ramp, then duck through a hatch, then run along the bench in the next room - elevated about three feet off the floor - until they get to the end. Then they get their grain, and they get milked.

The farmer went and got Winnie to try with. Since she is a LaMancha she is supposed to be smart. But she's not that smart - after all she let the farmer catch her when she should have known she was the subject of an experiment. Her sister Ronny took off running - that's the one the farmer should have guinea-pigged on, if you ask me.

But anyway, Winnie couldn't get with the program, no matter how the farmer shook the grain can and dangled peanut butter wafers. Winnie just stood and bawled. She wouldn't even put a foot on the ramp, except by accident, and then she leaped backward like a bee had stung her.

"Oh, forget it," the farmer said, and went to get Betsy. Betsy loves food, so she was very tempted, but she is part Nubian, so the whole thing was a little bit Flowers-for-Algernon. Betsy wanted to come up the ramp. She just didn't know how. She stood and bawled.

Her daughters out in the pasture joined in the bawling. Triplicate bawling, and no progress toward the milk bench.

The farmer was exasperated, and running short on time, so turned Betsy out. When the farmer wasn't looking, Blue Umbrella nipped in the out door.

"Whuh?" said the farmer, catching a glimpse of Blue Umbrella rushing past.

Blue made a sharp left, ran up the ramp, ducked under the hatchway, ran along to the end of the milkbench, and plunked her head in the feeder.

That's how it's done, fat girls. Watch and learn.

"Just give me one good reasonand I promise I won't ask you any moreJust give me one extra seasonso I can figure out the other four."

Good to see your post mentioning Steve Goodman's gorgeous and perhaps definitive version of John Prine's "Blue Umbrella." Goodman often doesn't get his due. You might be interested in my 800-page biography, "Steve Goodman: Facing the Music." The book delves deeply into the musical friendship between Goodman and Prine, who is a key source among my 1,050 interviewees.

You can find out more at my Internet site (below). Amazingly, the book's first printing sold out in just eight months, all 5,000 copies, and a second printing of 5,000 is available now. The second printing includes hundreds of little updates and additions, including 30 more photos for a total of 575. It just won a 2008 IPPY (Independent Publishers Association) silver medal for biography: http://www.independentpublisher.com/article.php?page=1231. To order a second-printing copy, see the "online store" page of my site. Just trying to spread word about the book. Feel free to do the same!

That sounds great, we will look for it. Actually the farmer was Steve Goodman's bodyguard for one night in 1977 (or 1978?) at Old Cabell Hall. In Charlottesville, Va. He sang 'Blue Umbrella,' of course. Unforgettably.